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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Urban Decay Vice Palette - Review and Swatches - Part 2

This is the second installment of my Urban Decay Vice Palette review. I have several other Urban Decay palettes, so I thought I would take some comparison swatches to see how close the Vice Palette shades were to existing UD shades.

If you didn't see my first post about the Vice Palette covering the basics about the palette itself and the individual shades, you can find it here.

Each of these swatches was done with a Q-tip on bare skin.

On to the swatches:

Left to right: Bust, Desperation, Pistol

As you can see, Desperation is quite a bit darker than the two comparison shades; for reference, Desperation is similar in depth to Darkhorse. In terms of tone, it is closer to these two shades, as they all three are a mix of grey and brown. Looking at my swatches, I actually think these three shades could create a pretty look together.

Left to right: Twice Baked, Muse, Lost

Muse, like Desperation, is also darker than the two colors I chose to compare it with. Actually, Muse and Desperation are about the same depth. In hindsight, I should have swatched Muse with Darkhorse because they are very similar, with Darkhorse being a cooler, green-tinged brown and Muse being much warmer.

Left to right: Cobra, Jagged, BM's Couture

I have to say it again: Jagged is a crap eye shadow. I would love to know how someone uses this shadow successfully without having dark glitter flecks all over their face in less than an hour. In terms of Urban Decay shades, I find Jagged most similar to Cobra. The BareMinerals shade I used for comparison is from The September Issue palette, and it's what Jagged SHOULD be.

Left to right: Half Baked, Blitz, BM's Pret-A-Porter

When you compare Half Baked with Blitz, the bronze tone of it really comes out. I can also see the slight green-ish tone in Blitz that I mentioned in my previous post (am I completely crazy with this?). While Blitz is a really strong yellow-gold, it looks less-so compared with Pret-A-Porter, which is another shade from The September Issue palette.

Left to right: Chopper, Penny Lane, TF's Copper Peony

Penny Lane has a much stronger golden tone than Chopper, and, thankfully, doesn't have the silver glitter. It isn't as orange as Too Faced's Copper Peony (swatched from my Sweet Dreams palette), but that could be because of the strong gold tone on Penny Lane.

Left to right: Hijack, Junkie, Deep End

I love the depth of Junkie. For someone who tends to use bright colors as liners, it's a great color. It's bright enough to still be fun, but it's dark enough to make it more wearable. It's brighter in tone than Hijack and very similar in tone to Deep End.

Chaos

I don't have anything even close to similar to Chaos, so there really wasn't any point in trying. Instead, I've included a swatch here that was done with my finger instead of with a Q-tip (sorry that it is blurry). I'll say the same thing that I did in the previous post: I don't have experience with bright matte shadows like this, so I'll defer to the experts that have said that it is really good quality for this type of shadow. A base would probably be a good idea with this shade to make it look its best.

Left to right: Gunmetal, Occupy, Ace

The blue tone and multi-colored shimmer of Occupy really stand out when compared with Gunmetal and Ace.

Left to right: Deep End, Unhinged, Haight

This is probably one of the most dupeable shades in the palette. As you can see, it is very similar to both Deep End and Haight. Deep End is a little greener, and Haight is slightly deeper and more muted, but I don't think the differences would stand out very much on the eyes.

Left to right: Perversion, Black Market, Blackout

It's nice that Urban Decay decided to try another variation of a matte black, and Black Market is a nice color. I like the subtle sheen. However, when it's blended out, the sheen pretty much disappears, and it looks the same as Perversion.

Left to right: Bordello, Provocateur, YDK

Provocateur is more grey-toned than Bordello, and YDK looks very brown in comparison. Since Provocateur is a chunky glitter-bomb, I much prefer Bordello.

Left to right: Toasted, Rapture, Bordello

Another shadow that I should have swatched with Rapture is Rockstar, which is probably the most similar in depth. Rockstar is much warmer in tone than Rapture, and it makes Rapture appear to have a slight pink cast. For a company that has quite a few purple shades, Rapture is fairly unique.

Left to right: Psychedelic Sister, Vice, Gravity

Vice is very similar in depth to both Psychedelic Sister and Gravity. In terms of tone, it is between the two with Psychedelic Sister being warmer and Gravity being cooler.

Left to right: Woodstock, Noise, Junkshow

Urban Decay really didn't need to put out another hot pink shadow. The tone and depth is almost identical. The main differences are that Woodstock has much finer shimmer, Noise has slightly chunkier gold glitter, and Junkshow has a blue sheen. If you are a lover of hot pink shadows, you might appreciate the differences, but I personally don't.

Left to right: Pistol, Armor, TF's Nice Ash

Armor and Pistol are quite similar. Armor is a bit darker, more brown, and has more shimmer, but it isn't an extreme difference. I also threw in a swatch of Too Faced's Nice Ash, which is quite different.

Left to right: Nevermind, Suspect, Echo Beach, Verve

I cheated a little bit here because I was going to compare both Nevermind and Echo Beach to Suspect and Verve, so it made sense to me to compare them all together. Nevermind is a little bit deeper and cooler than Suspect. Echo Beach is a little bit deeper and much warmer than Verve. In my mind, these are sister shades. Someone else would probably say that they are close enough that you don't need both. Since these types of shades are my favorite (when people ask, I say that Suspect is my favorite eye shadow), I love having all four.

Left to right: Skimp, Anonymous, Foxy

Anonymous is a perfect highlight shade for my fair, neutral skintone. I hate how yellow Foxy is; I can't really use it.

Left to right: X, Freebird, Snatch

Both Freebird and Snatch lean towards Chunky. I've got Freebird on my lids as I'm writing this post, and I have fine shimmer under my eyes and on my cheeks from it. Snatch swatches better initially, but the glitter particles are larger, so they'll be more obvious when they fall off your lids. X is a clear winner out of these three. The color is similar, it isn't chunky, and the gold duo-chrome is gorgeous.

Left to right: Naked, Laced, Tease

This is a nice trio of soft crease colors. I know that people have complained about the quality of Tease, but I don't mind it. Naked is a nice warm brown, Laced is a pink-toned brown, and Tease is cool toned.

Final Thoughts

Some of the colors in the Vice Palette are easily dupeable and others are relatively unique. Like I said in my previous post, the people who are going to want to pick up the Vice Palette are going to be the hard-core Urban Decay collectors or those just starting out with their makeup collection. Those who already have several Urban Decay palettes who don't feel the need to have them all should be able to pass on this one without any regrets.
Are you passing on this one or picking it up? Are there any close shades that you can think to compare the Vice Palette shades to that I missed?